Sections

An RCMP document suggests Sen. Irving Gerstein was asked by Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, to reach out to a contact at Deloitte over the Mike Duffy expense scandal.Photo: The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — A Liberal senator wants an investigation into the actions of a Conservative counterpart whose named has been linked to allegations of interference and attempted manipulation of Sen. Mike Duffy’s audit.

Sen. Celine Hervieux-Payette officially asked the Senate ethics officer to look into allegations Sen. Irving Gerstein used a senior manager at auditing firm Deloitte to try to change the course of an audit of Duffy’s housing expenses.

Hervieux-Payette previously tried to have Gerstein removed as chairman of the Senate’s banking committee, saying he should step down until he either testified before the Senate or had his name cleared of all suspicion by the RCMP.

Gerstein ruled the motion out of order and has remained chairman.

With few options available to the Liberals in the Senate chamber to try to force Gerstein to testify — or the senior Deloitte partner he allegedly worked with, Michael Runia — Hervieux-Payette turned Thursday to the ethics officer, who previously has been asked to weigh in on allegations of misconduct against Conservative Sen. Pierre Hugues-Boisvenu and Liberal Sen. Pana Merchant.

In her letter to ethics officer Lyse Ricard, Hervieux-Payette said Gerstein allegedly tried to use his position of senator to influence private interests. In the Duffy case, Hervieux-Payette argued that Gerstein tried to interfere in the work of the committee overseeing the audit “to promote the personal and financial interests of another senator, thus creating in the eyes of the public the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Court documents filed last month alleged that Gerstein, chairman of the Conservative Fund of Canada, asked Runia to try to persuade the auditors to drop their review of Duffy. Gerstein told RCMP investigators he called Runia to see “if there was anything he could share with him regarding the status of the audit.”

In a March 1 email quoted in the RCMP document, Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, asked Gerstein to “work through senior contacts at Deloitte.” One week later on March 8, Wright received an email from former PMO staffer Patrick Rogers that everyone involved was waiting on Gerstein’s contact — Runia — “to get the actual Deloitte auditor to agree” to ending Duffy’s audit, and that Gerstein would call back “once we have Deloitte locked in.”

“These facts seem to me sufficient to ask that you proceed with an investigation,” Hervieux-Payette wrote in her letter.

The Senate ethics officer had been investigating Duffy and the $90,000 payment he received from Wright. Ricard suspended that probe when the RCMP confirmed they were investigating the backroom deal with Duffy.